Rethinking Graveyards—Can These Bones Live??
Confirmation Sunday
April 6, 2014
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45
I want you to try and rethink everything you think you know about graveyards. Re think everything you
think you know about death and destruction; about boneyards scattered hither and yon on the bare
earth, staring up at us like angry reminders of defeat. Things may not be as they first appear. They
really may not be that way at all.
Could you also try to put yourself in the “shoes” of these 20 young people who will come and stand
before you today in worship services here and in the other two services to be confirmed as full members
of the church? Instead of looking at them and wondering how they’re doing in their respective classes
in the 6th and 7th grades, admiring how nice they look today in their “Sunday best” try to imagine what
they see when they look out upon you, upon us… what do they see? At ages 12, 13, 14 they look out
upon a sea of faces of 50,60,70,80 year old people and maybe even feel outnumbered. They look out
and see folks like us who don’t know hardly anything about all those electronic gadgets with which they
feel very familiar. While those “things” may frighten us and confuse us, they see them as essentials—
they’ve grown up with them and feel like they’re just extensions of their hands. What they hear and
experience in their schoolrooms and in their worlds is vastly different from what we might have
experienced when we were their age, but try to put your selves in their shoes.
We are their parents and grandparents; we are their teachers and former teachers, their coaches and
Scout Leaders, their physicians and friends. This is a special day in their lives and certainly in the life of
this historic congregation. Mentors, parents, grandparents, Children’s Ministers, Youth Ministers, and
Pastors have been privileged to spend at least 20 hours with them since early January, going over and
over the tenants of the Christian faith. We’ve reviewed some of the unique contributions of what a
Wesleyan faith in Jesus Christ is all about… tried to wrap our minds around the porch, the door, and the
house of God’s grace known as prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. In fact, if you’re a little
unsure yourself what difference prevenient or sanctifying grace means and whether you find that on the
“porch” or at the “door” of your Christian experience, just ask one of these... twenty—they might be
able to help you! After all, that’s what the faith journey is all about isn’t it? Helping each other along
the way? Lending a hand when someone has fallen? Stopping to rest when another one has grown so
weary of trying and trying and not getting anywhere? I think it is. Other than John Polk, David Wilson,
and Chester Jones (if you’re here today) I’m the oldest Methodist pastor here today. Our youngsters like
Teresa Holt and Zach Roberts would hopefully agree, but being the oldest pastor on staff, I think I can
safely say that John Wesley himself would smile on these young people. In a few moments, I will be
thrilled to welcome them as full members of the church as they make their vows of faith in Christ.
But back to the image I asked you to re-think at the very beginning… the graveyard—or as Ezekiel vividly
called it, “The Boneyard!” Ezekiel wrote of this captivating dream in the midst of ministering to a people
in exile. Things looked pretty bleak. Living in exile didn’t really seem like “living” at all. Hope seemed
gone. But over and over again we hear stories about how God sees things differently. God has a way of
bringing what looks like dry bones together, forming them into something that can house the spirit of
God when it blows life-giving breath again. Because God sees differently. Always has. Always will. But I
sometimes just see boneyards, and I would imagine you do too. That’s why this scripture is so important
to us today, of all days, on the Confirmation Day of twenty very special young people. Some might say
the Church has become irrelevant and that young people don’t see any life whatsoever in gatherings like
this. Some might say that because the Church has not done a very good job of truly welcoming others,
especially those who are unlike the “majority” and that it is fast becoming a dry wasteland of “isms” and
prejudices; strewn across the landscape as something to be avoided at all costs, but yet the Sprit yearns
to inhabit human space, your space, our space, this space! When the Spirit moves inside that which
might appear at first glance to be bones and ligaments loosely strung together, a “whole lot of shaking
goes on!” May that shaking be felt here and now, in this place!
It’s certainly time for things to get shaking, that’s for sure. On the road to Jerusalem, almost there by
only two more miles, Jesus arrived too late; at least that’s how Martha, Mary, and the other disciples
saw it. No one could be tighter in their love for each other and in their relationship together than Mary,
Martha, Lazarus, and Jesus. No wonder he wept when he saw their grief and began to absorb their
sense of grief and loss. They were filled with those same hopeless words we oftentimes resort to when
we insist on living in the past, when we insist on blaming and finding fault…”if only you had showed up
earlier Jesus!” If only. If only. If only the UMC hadn’t lost millions of members since 1968. If only. If
only we had “church” now like we had it in the 1950’s… if only. Perhaps we thought Jesus was too late
or didn’t show up at all!
But instead of just “rescuing” us, Jesus is far more interested in resurrecting us. Ezekiel saw it happen
right before his eyes there in the graveyard of exile. People in Bethany saw it happen right there before
their eyes as Lazarus stumbled out of his grave, teetering and wobbling, bound, still, in his grave clothes!
The sight must have been both breathtaking and funny at the very same time, and I guess that’s why
Jesus told them to “untie him and let him go free.”
If you’ll allow them to do it, I think that’s what these twenty young people are willing to do today—
reach into our grave clothes we wear as a church and loosen them so that we can go free. The grave
clothes have names… you know that already. Their names are familiar and we hold them close like old
friends. Their names are fear, hate, distrust, grudges, prejudice, racism, sexism, selfishness, envy, and
pride. But Jesus knows they aren’t necessary for a church that is resurrected and living. So when they
come up to you to loosen that which binds you, welcome them to be the agents of change, grace, and
resurrection that they were meant to be. All this is what happens when we re-think graveyards and ask
preposterous questions like, “Can these bones live?”